Not Without My Daughter

Betty Mahmoody travels to Tehran for two weeks with her Iranian husband Moody, a doctor, to visit his family. Their five-year-old daughter Mahtab is with them. When the two weeks are up, Moody says they are not going back. With no passport, and as a woman with no custody of her child under Iranian law, Betty starts looking for a way out of the country with her daughter. The story is built as an escape film: secret phone calls, intermediaries, and finally a mountain route to the Turkish border in winter. The source is Betty Mahmoody's own book, and the film never leaves her point of view. Brian Gilbert directed. Sally Field plays Betty and Alfred Molina plays Moody. Filming in Iran was impossible, so Tehran was built in Israel between February and May 1990, using Ajami and Allenby in Tel Aviv, Acre, Eilat and the Negev desert. The reception was harsh. Caryn James in the New York Times accused it of exploiting the stereotype of the demonic Iranian, and Roger Ebert wrote that it does not play fair with its Muslim characters and would be called racist if made about any other ethnic group. Who it is for: viewers who want a real-events escape thriller, and anyone watching for Sally Field. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot set the representation problem aside. The film listens to one side and casts nearly every Iranian character as a threat.